Anna Olson's Country Apple Pie

Aaron and Patricia came over this Sunday for lunch and a game of Risk. I made roast chicken thighs with gravy and prunes, rice with matchstick potatoes, and sateed carrots with butter and sugar. For dessert I wanted to make something really homey, wintery, and magnificent. The first thing that came to mind was apple pie. The next thing that came to mind was Anna Olson. I figured that between her awesomeness and my awesomeness we could do no wrong - and I was right. It was truly something to blog about, and so I'm sharing it with you. By the by, it is so easy to make it's insane. The dough came out a bit like massa folhada (don't know why), and it was crunchy and delish. Give it a go this weekend.

Anna Olson's Country Apple Pie
makes one 9 inch pie

Ingredients:

Pastry

• 2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp fine salt
• 1/2 cup unsalted butter (I used all shortening, no butter)
  
• 1/2 cup vegetable shortening
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 6 tbsp to 10 tbsp cold water as needed

Filling

• 8 cups peeled and sliced tart apples, such as Spy or Spartan (I used Gala)
  
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 2 tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp lemon juice
• 1 tsp finely grated lemon zest
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp nutmeg
• 1 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1 egg whisked with 2 tbsp cold water for brushing
• sugar for sprinkling

Directions:

Pastry

1. Combine flour with salt. Cut in butter and shortening until mixture is a roughly even crumbly texture.
2. Add lemon juice and water and blend just until dough comes together. Shape into a disc, wrap and chill for 30 minutes.

Filling

1. Toss all ingredients except butter together and set aside.
2. Preheat oven to 400 °F.
3. On a lightly floured surface, roll out half of dough to just under ¼-inch thick. Lightly dust bottom of a 9-inch pie pan with flour and line pan with dough. Fill pastry with apples and dot top with butter.
4. Roll out remaining half of dough and place over apples. Trim and cinch edges of pie and cut in holes in top layer of pastry to let steam escape. Brush top of pie with eggwash and sprinkle lightly with sugar.
5. Bake for 10 minutes, then reduce heat to 375 °F and bake about 40 minutes, until filling is bubbling. Cool pie for at least an hour before slicing. (Super important: make sure you put your pie dish to bake on top of another bigger oven tray in case there's any dripping. You don't want the drippings burning and smoking all over your brand new Brastemp oven you just bought and almost suffocate to death trying to clean it while the oven is still hot so you can bake your chicken - I learned this the hard way.)

Tata for now!